Implementation of a Skin Lesion Detection System for Managing Children with Atopic Dermatitis Based on Ensemble Learning

Abstract

The amendments made to the Data 3 Act and impact of COVID-19 have fostered the growth of digital healthcare market and promoted the use of medical data in artificial intelligence in South Korea. Atopic dermatitis, a chronic inflammatory skin disease, is diagnosed via subjective evaluations without using objective diagnostic methods, thereby increasing the risk of misdiagnosis. It is also similar to psoriasis in appearance, further complicating its accurate diagnosis. Existing studies on skin diseases have used high-quality dermoscopic image datasets, but such high-quality images cannot be obtained in actual clinical settings. Moreover, existing systems must ensure accuracy and fast response times. To this end, an ensemble learning-based skin lesion detection system (ENSEL) was proposed herein. ENSEL enhanced diagnostic accuracy by integrating various deep learning models via an ensemble approach. Its performance was verified by conducting skin lesion detection experiments using images of skin lesions taken by actual users. Its accuracy and response time were measured using randomly sampled skin disease images. Results revealed that ENSEL achieved high recall in most images and less than 1s s processing speed. This study contributes to the objective diagnosis of skin lesions and promotes the advancement of digital healthcare.